Reporters without Respect
May 22, 2025
Reporting Prohibited
September 4, 2025Statement from the Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, August 10, 2025 — The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled to learn of Sunday’s killing of Al Jazeera correspondents Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa by Israeli forces in Gaza. The five journalists were killed in an attack on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during an Israeli bombardment, according to Al Jazeera.
In a statement announcing the killing of al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops.”
Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.
“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”
Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since the start of the war and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas, without providing evidence. Most recently, al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza.
In a July 24 video, Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, accused al-Sharif of having been a member of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and working during the war “for the most criminal and offensive channel.”
Al-Sharif told CPJ in July: “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction; it is a real-life threat.”
He said, “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world. They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”
Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, 2023, 186 journalists have been killed. At least 178 of those journalists were Palestinians killed by Israel.